Abstract When Shakespeare averred, “a rose by any other name would smell as sweet”, we precisely knew the attributes associated with this thing called “ROSE.” But do we really know what Quantum supremacy1 or Quantum advantage2 exactly entails in Quantum Computing (QC) space, except that latter appears more politically correct than the former? How do we achieve the supremacy or advantage unless we precisely know what threshold needs to be reached to qualify? Can that threshold be totally oblivious to ethics and humane interests? What good a nuclear chain reaction is, if it cannot be controlled to serve humanity? In the same breadth definition of quantum advantage cannot be just limited to achieving algorithmic superiority over legacy computing systems, particularly when a section of the experts attribute catastrophic threat3 that unrestrained QC may cause by collapsing the current cryptographic infrastructure4 resulting in amplified existential risk to humanity.5 These predictions are relevant only if QCs become commercially viable and deployable in the service of humanity. No technology can be a one-way ticket to catastrophe, and neither can the definition of superiority of that technology be. If at all there are catastrophic risks, QC can never enter public domain as a minimum viable product (MVP) unless there are safeguards in place. So obviously those safeguards should become an integral part of the definition of its superiority over the conventional computers and a standard to be met to pass the MVP threshold. NIST (National Institute of Standards & Technology) is pursuing the standardization of Post Quantum Cryptography (PQC) as that safeguard,6 but with 80th of the 82 candidate PQCs recently failing7 and companies already offering QC as a service, there is an urgent need for an alternate strategy. Our research proposes a novel encryption agnostic approach8 to safeguard QC,9 and articulates a comprehensive definition of an MVP that can potentially set a gold standard for defining commercially viable quantum advantage over the traditional computing.
Abstract When Shakespeare averred, “a rose by any other name would smell as sweet”, we precisely knew the attributes associated with this thing called “ROSE.” But do we really know what Quantum supremacy1 or Quantum advantage2 exactly entails in Quantum Computing (QC) space, except that latter appears more politically correct than the former? How do we achieve the supremacy or advantage unless we precisely know what threshold needs to be reached to qualify? Can that threshold be totally oblivious to ethics and humane interests? What good a nuclear chain reaction is, if it cannot be controlled to serve humanity? In the same breadth definition of quantum advantage cannot be just limited to achieving algorithmic superiority over legacy computing systems, particularly when a section of the experts attribute catastrophic threat3 that unrestrained QC may cause by collapsing the current cryptographic infrastructure4 resulting in amplified existential risk to humanity.5 These predictions are relevant only if QCs become commercially viable and deployable in the service of humanity. No technology can be a one-way ticket to catastrophe, and neither can the definition of superiority of that technology be. If at all there are catastrophic risks, QC can never enter public domain as a minimum viable product (MVP) unless there are safeguards in place. So obviously those safeguards should become an integral part of the definition of its superiority over the conventional computers and a standard to be met to pass the MVP threshold. NIST (National Institute of Standards & Technology) is pursuing the standardization of Post Quantum Cryptography (PQC) as that safeguard,6 but with 80th of the 82 candidate PQCs recently failing7 and companies already offering QC as a service, there is an urgent need for an alternate strategy. Our research proposes a novel encryption agnostic approach8 to safeguard QC,9 and articulates a comprehensive definition of an MVP that can potentially set a gold standard for defining commercially viable quantum advantage over the traditional computing.
Quantum Computing (QC) is hailed as the future of computers. After Google’s claim of achieving Quantum Supremacy in 2019, several groups challenged the claim. Some QC experts attribute catastrophic risks that unrestrained QC may cause in the future by collapsing the current cryptographic cybersecurity infrastructure. These predictions are relevant only if QC becomes commercially viable and sustainable in the future. No technology can be a one-way ticket to catastrophe, and neither can the definition of superiority of that technology be. If there are catastrophic risks, large-scale QC can never enter the public domain as a minimum viable product (MVP) unless there are safeguards in place. Those safeguards should obviously become an integral part of the definition of its superiority over the legacy systems. NIST (National Institute of Standards & Technology) is pursuing the standardization of Post Quantum Cryptography (PQC) as that safeguard. However, with all the 82 candidate PQCs failing and companies already offering QC as a service, there’s an urgent need for an alternate strategy to mitigate the impending Q-Day threat and render QC sustainable. Our research proposes a novel encryption-agnostic cybersecurity approach to safeguard QC. It articulates a comprehensive definition of an MVP that can potentially set a sustainable gold standard for defining commercially viable quantum advantage over classical computing.
As quantum computing emerges, the security domain is set to encounter unparalleled challenges, necessitating a pivotal shift to Post-Quantum Cryptography (PQC) for safeguarding against quantum adversities. Current cryptographic mechanisms, especially RSA and ECC, are susceptible to quantum breaches due to their reliance on factorization and discrete logarithm problems. The emergence of quantum computers endangers traditional cryptographic infrastructures, exposing them to swift decryption by algorithms like Shor’s, N=p⋅q, and Grover’s, r≡a2NmodN, where N is the product of two significant primes, p and q, and r denotes the remainder after applying Grover’s algorithm to a. Conventional cryptographic methods, which rest on problems solvable by quantum computers, emphasize the need to transition to PQC, substituting prevalent methods with quantum-resilient alternatives, represented by E=memodn, where E is the encrypted message, m the plaintext, e the public key exponent, and n the product of two prime numbers. This research evaluates the efficacy of PQC approaches, encompassing lattice-based, code-based, and isogeny-based cryptography, with assessments based on metrics like encryption duration, Te=fe1, and key length, log2(N), where Te represents encryption time and fe the encryption speed. Employing standardized datasets, we examine encryption and decryption speeds, key sizes, and success metrics against NIST’s endorsed security standards. The findings underscore PQC’s potential in delivering robust security, albeit with variations in performance metrics, guiding secure communication choices. In summation, the study highlights the essential shift to PQC in addressing the vulnerabilities ushered in by quantum computing, presenting a spectrum of fortified strategies for the future of information security.
Classical cryptography has been around for a long time in the documented human history, but most classical ciphers were broken and even solved by hand. Shannon introduced the notion of perfect secrecy that formally defines confidentiality in the information-theoretic sense, which is only possible in the restricted scenarios where the message is no longer than the encryption key. The invention of public-key cryptography (the Diffie-Hellman key exchange protocol in 1976 and the RSA crypto-system in 1977) marks the birth of modern cryptography, allowing parties to exchange messages securely without sharing any secrets in advance. Furthermore, it provides computational security based on the conjectured hardness of mathematical problems such as factorization and the discrete logarithm. Public-key cryptography has found numerous applications in the Internet, financial and banking industry, and blockchains, and it plays a crucial role in protecting information security and asset safety. Unfortunately, in the 1990s, Shor proposed efficient quantum algorithms that solve number-theoretic problems, including factorization and discrete logarithms in polynomial time. Once a quantum computer of a particular scale becomes a reality, it will cause a devastating blow to the existing public-key infrastructure. To deal with such a ‘quantum crisis’, academia and industry are looking into the design, analysis and standardization of cryptographic algorithms that can resist quantum computers referred to as post-quantum cryptography (PQC). The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has been soliciting proposals for the post-quantum public-key algorithms since 2016. More recently, the Chinese Association for Cryptologic Research (CACR) held a competition on designing cryptographic algorithms whose public-key cryptography track focused on post-quantum cryptographic algorithms. Lattice-based cryptography is considered by most to be the mainstream technical route of post-quantum cryptography, which is reflected in the number of proposals (and their percentage of the total) received in the NIST PQC process. To reflect the status quo of post-quantum cryptography, we invite leading experts in this area to contribute three technical perspectives that aim to help readers understand the algorithms, the underlying basic techniques and different technical routes to achieve quantum resistance. The first perspective, presented by Lu and Zhang, introduces public-key cryptographic algorithms whose quantum security is reducible from the conjectured quantum hardness of lattice problems. In particular, they mainly focus on public-key encryption (PKE) and the key encapsulation mechanism (KEM), which are essential building blocks for securing the confidentiality of communication without pre-shared secrets. Both types of crypto-systems are solicited by the NIST PQC standardization and the CACR algorithm design competition. This perspective gives a comprehensive survey on practical lattice-based PKEs/KEMs, and their best-known quantum and classical attacks. Another important post-quantum crypto-system is digital signature, which ensures that three goals of information security are met other than confidentiality, namely, integrity, authentication and non-repudiation. The second perspective is on lattice-based signature by Lyubashevsky. In this perspective, he surveys different techniques in building lattice-based post-quantum crypto-systems, discusses the challenges in overcoming performance issues and gives us state-of-the-art digital signature schemes. In addition to ensuring the ‘static’ security of information in storage and transmission, advanced cryptographic algorithms and protocols can guarantee information security during the computation process (possibly among multiple parties), referred to as privacy-preserving computation. Cryptographic techniques involved in privacy-preserving computation include secure multi-party computation, zero-knowledge proof and fully homomorphic encryption. There is a pressing need to migrate them to the post-quantum era. The third perspective, by Yu and Xie, presents practical instantiations of these algorithms and discusses possible ways to migrate them to their quantum-resistant counterparts. To summarize, post-quantum cryptography has received widespread attention and made significant progress in recent years. Some post-quantum cryptographic algorithms, such as the lattice-based candidate, also have other advantages (e.g., computational efficiency and full homomorphism) over their classical counterparts. Lattice-based cryptography is an emerging field with high theoretical value and wide application, and we encourage young researchers to enter and explore this new and exciting field.
The advent of quantum supremacy, in which quantum computers achieve superior performance compared to classical systems on certain tasks, will have far-reaching consequences for cybersecurity and encryption. Current cybersecurity frameworks rely on traditional cryptographic methods like RSA and ECC, which are in danger of being rendered obsolete by the advent of quantum computing. Researchers in this study investigate the pressing need for post-quantum cryptography (PQC) solutions that are resistant to quantum attacks and the ways in which quantum supremacy may transform cryptographic procedures. Examining quantum algorithms that can crack classical encryption protocols, such as Shor's and Grover's, the study brings attention to the weaknesses in the present cybersecurity system. The article also discusses new PQC methods that aim to protect data in a future where quantum technology is widely used. We conclude that current cryptographic systems could be compromised by quantum supremacy, but that cybersecurity on a global scale could be protected by the early adoption of cryptographic solutions that are resistant to quantum attacks. With the advent of quantum computing on the horizon, this study highlights the paramount significance of moving to post-quantum solutions to protect sensitive data.
Quantum computing poses a significant threat to conventional cryptographic systems that rely on the difficulty of mathematical problems such as integer factorization and discrete logarithms. These systems underpin much of the current security infrastructure, including public key cryptography and digital signatures. As quantum computers approach practical viability, there is an urgent need to transition to quantum-resistant cryptographic solutions that can secure digital communications against adversaries equipped with quantum capabilities. This paper explores the landscape of quantum-resistant cryptography, focusing on those algorithms that have emerged either as standards or as leading algorithm. Furthermore, the paper examines the progress of standardization efforts, such as the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Post-Quantum Cryptography (PQC) initiative, and the implications of deploying these algorithms in existing systems. By addressing the practical considerations for adoption, this study aims to provide a comprehensive overview of the current state and future directions of quantum-resistant cryptography, ensuring robust security in a post-quantum world.
Quantum computing’s arrival signals a paradigm shift in computational power that may transform several sectors, including drug discovery, artificial intelligence, materials research, and optimization [2]. However, this transformative potential also presents a significant and imminent threat to cybersecurity. At the heart of this technological shift is the ability of quantum computers to tackle the complex mathematical challenges on which modern public-key cryptography relies. Quantum algorithms, most notably Shor’s algorithm, can break problems such as integer factorization and discrete logarithms far more efficiently than classical approaches. As a result, cryptographic methods that are widely trusted today—including RSA and Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC)—could become insecure once large-scale quantum computing becomes a reality[1], [8].This poses a profound challenge to the confidentiality, integrity, and authenticity of digital communications, financial networks, essential infrastructure, and national defense systems [9]. To counter this emerging risk, Post-Quantum Cryptography (PQC) has become an important area of active research. The goal of PQC is to design cryptographic techniques that can withstand attacks from both conventional computers and future quantum systems, thereby preserving long-term data security in the face of advancing quantum technologies [3].A number of promising Post-Quantum Cryptography (PQC) approaches are currently being explored in depth. Among them, lattice-based cryptography has attracted significant interest, as it relies on the computational difficulty of problems like Learning With Errors (LWE) and the Shortest Vector Problem (SVP), offering both robust security assurances and practical efficiency [4], [5]. Hash-based signature schemes, such as XMSS and SPHINCS+, offer security rooted in well-established hashing techniques and stateless signature construction [7]. Additionally, code-based cryptography, including systems inspired by the McEliece cryptosystem, remains attractive for its long-standing resistance to cryptanalytic attacks [6]. Other avenues include multivariate quadratic systems and isogeny-based cryptography, each presenting unique benefits and trade-offs in terms of key size, performance, and security robustness [8].A central force driving global standardization is the NIST Post-Quantum Cryptography Standardization Project, initiated in 2016 to evaluate and establish new quantum-resilient cryptographic standards [3]. Several algorithms have already advanced to the final standardization phase, while others remain candidates for further evaluation.Despite this progress, transitioning to PQC introduces practical challenges. Integrating new cryptographic algorithms into current digital ecosystems demands considerable computational and infrastructural updates, often involving larger key sizes and increased processing overhead [10]. Organizations must also ensure crypto-agility, the capability to rapidly adapt cryptographic systems as new standards evolve or vulnerabilities are identified [11].One strategic transition approach involves hybrid cryptographic architectures, which combine conventional and quantum-safe algorithms to provide layered security during this migration period [9]. Moreover, organizations should inventory existing cryptographic assets, conduct quantum risk assessments, pilot PQC deployments, and cultivate a quantum-aware cybersecurity workforce.The threat is amplified by “harvest now, decrypt later” strategies, in which adversaries intercept encrypted data today with the intention of decrypting it once quantum capabilities mature [9]. Particularly sensitive categories — including military communications, governmental archives, personal healthcare records, and intellectual property — require immediate PQC-oriented protection.As the quantum era approaches, coordinated global action is essential to harness quantum innovation while safeguarding digital trust. Through proactive investment in research, standardization efforts, and phased post-quantum deployment, societies can preserve digital sovereignty and security resilience in the face of this technological shift [11].